What Caught My Eye Today - Honduras, Deportation, Potpourri

Honduras - For the third year in a row, San Pedro Sula, Honduras is the world's most murderous city with 187 homicides per 100,000 residents. Quick honey, call the travel agent and cancel our reservations. I knew that all inclusion vacation to San Pedro Sula was too good to be true. The high murder rate is blamed partly on a crackdown on drug cartels in Mexico that has pushed some of the drug trade into Honduras. Oh sure, blame Mexico. Dude, that is so low. 41 of the world's top 50 murder-prone cities are in Latin America, including the rest of the top 5: Caracas, Venezuela; Acapulco, Mexico; Cali, Colombia; and Maceio, Brazil. 16 of the top 50 are in Brazil, nine in Mexico, and four in the United States (#24 - Detroit; #26 - New Orleans; #36 - Baltimore; #45 - St. Louis). The survey does not include cities located in war zones. So does that mean that Damascus, Syria, Baghdad, Iraq and Kabul, Afghanistan are not the seas of tranquility that I thought they might be?

Deportation - The voice of the people has spoken, and now the government has to respond. After topping more than 100,000 signatures on "We the People," the White House is now obligated to respond to a petition to "Deport Justin Bieber and revoke his green card." The petition reads, "We the people of the United States feel that we are being wrongly represented in the world of pop culture. We would like to see the dangerous, reckless, destructive, and drug abusing, Justin Bieber deported and his green card revoked. He is not only threatening the safety of our people but he is also a terrible influence on our nation's youth. We the people would like to remove Justin Bieber from our society." Yeah, the Beibs is the cause of all that is wrong with our society. Don't get me wrong, I think the guy is a hack and has serious delusions of grandeur, but that doesn't mean he's a bad person. Beiber carries an O-1 visa that allows individuals "of extraordinary ability in the arts" to stay in the U.S. One must remember that "extraordinary" doesn't necessarily mean good. On all petitions, "We the People" states, "If a petition meets the signature threshold, it will be reviewed by the Administration and we will issue a response." As of this Wednesday afternoon the petition had 104,700 signatures and climbing. The White House reviews and usually responds to petitions that get more than 100,000 signatures within 30 days. I wonder what staffer will get this plum assignment. A rival petition started a few days later on the site and pleading on behalf of the pop star had garnered less than 1,000 signatures. This guy cannot catch a break can he? Pity.

Potpourri - I call this the "Scary or Gross?" edition.

• Winter Olympics: The 2010 Winter Olympics had the same overall injury rate as the Summer Olympics in 2012, about 11%, but severe acute injuries are more common in the Winter Games because so many of the events involve high speeds. I'm going with scary on this one.  Think about it. More than 1 in every 10 athletes is going to be injured at the upcoming Olympic Games in Sochi doing something voluntarily and for the most part not getting any sort of monetary compensation for. Not convinced?  Check out these statistics and see if anything jumps out at you. The top five events with the highest injury rate for male athletes are: Short track speed skating - 28%; Bobsled - 17%; Ice Hockey - 16%; Ski Cross - 15%; Aerials and Snow Pipe (tie) - 13%. The top five events with the highest injury rate for female athletes are: Snowboard Cross - 73%; Aerials - 26%; Bobsled - 24%; Ski Cross / Ice Hockey (tie) - 23%. 73% percent! Holy crap!
• Promiscuity - America's senior citizens are indulging in a lot of unsafe sex in retirement and assisted living facilities. I wonder if unsafe sex really means unprotected sex. If that is the case, I'm not sure I'd go with gross or scary here; maybe stupid or foolish.  And let's be honest here--if a horny senior has a heart condition, a condom probably isn't going to help much. Plus can you think of a more pleasant way to go into the afterlife. Over the past two years, 2.2 million Medicare recipients received free tests for sexually transmitted diseases, about the same as the number who received free colonoscopies to screen for colon cancer. Having had both sex and a colonoscopy, given the choice, I'd take sex every time.
• Diet - American adults consumed 118 fewer calories in 2010 than they did in 2006. Health experts theorize that the slight decline reflects public education about diet, pressure on fast food makers to offer healthier alternatives, and a decline in dining out due to financial struggles. I'm going scary here. It's a little disturbing to think that the inability to buy food might be the most effective means for Americans to lose weight.
• Agriculture - China has banned food crops from being grown on 8 million acres of land, an area about the size of Belgium, because the soil is too saturated with industrial pollutants. Scary. Definitely scary.
• Wealth - The combined wealth of the world's 85 richest people, $1.7 trillion, is equivalent to the wealth held by the poorest half of the world's population, some 3.5 billion people. Since tragic isn't an option, gross it is. It borders on obscene (sort of a take on gross, don't you think) that 85 people have more wealth than 3.5 billion. Perhaps if I was one of those 85 people, I might feel differently, but I'm not, so I don't.